Ashoka Canada's Impact: Large-Scale Systemic Changes

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From the beginning, measuring the impact of our efforts has been a top priority for Ashoka. We define impact as systemic changes – affecting large numbers of people – that flow from our network of Fellows, their ideas, and the ecosystems that Ashoka supports.

Ashoka’s Fellow network includes more than 3,000 Fellows spanning 92 countries, 52 of whom are in Canada. They account for some of the most significant and sustained social changes that have occured in recent decades.

How do we know if Ashoka Fellows change systems? What systems do they change? These questions and more are answered in Ashoka’s biennial Impact Studies. These studies consistently show that about 80 percent of Ashoka Fellows have changed a national-level system in at least one way within 10 years of their election to the Ashoka Fellowship. In 2013, 87 percent of Ashoka Fellows surveyed globally indicated that Ashoka had helped to increase the impact of their work, with 49 percent saying that Ashoka had made a “critical difference” in their efforts.